The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1887-11-12
DOnaId's Wife.

said he had made mistake.
She was merry, laughing girl of
eighteen, fresh from school; and he her
fathers old friend, quiet, self-contain-
ed man of thirty-fve, and it can scarce
ly be wondered at that many wise heads
were shaken over the ill-sorted match.
Jessie had always stood little in awe
of the quiet, stern man, who had been
frequent visitor at her fathers house
during his life time.
But she was quite unprovided for, and
Donald McKeon was wealthy; and
when he asked her to be his wife in a
matter-of-fact way, very much as he
might have asked her to be his house
keeper, it seemed the easiest way to
solve the troublesome problem of her
life, and, besides this, she knew her
father to have been under obligations
to him, and more than suspected that
the three years she had successfully
passed at fashionable school since her
fathers death had been at his expense.
And so they were married, and he
took her to his old home that his fami-
ly had owned and occupied for gener-
ations.
1t never occurred to him that it was
a dreary sort of life for a girllike Jessie.
alone in that gloomy old house all day,
with only the servants and the ghosts of
by gone generations for company.
And when she grew pale and listless
and lost her old elasticity of spirits, a
fear that had haunted him since his
wedding day took possession of him
and poisoned his life-a fear that she had
married him for home and position and
already regretted her choice.
Gladly would he have given her back
her liberty had that been possible
But being a sensitive, undemonstrative
man, let her see nothing of this, but
rather shrank from her because of the
wrong he had done her and came and
went and made no sign.
And then people began to discover
Mrs. McLeon to be a very charming
woman, and her husband wealthy and
influential man, and invitations began
to pour in upon her.
And Jessie plunged into this new life
of fashionable dissipation with zeSt
that was the natural reaction from the
gloom and loneliness of the past year.
At first her husband accompanied her
wherever she went, for he had some
what old-fashioned notions as to what
was right and fitting for women to do.
But it was life he utterly detested.
1t interferred with his business, and he
looked below the surface and saw the
hollow falsehood it was, after all, and
it grated on his fine ideas of truth and
sincerity.
Perhaps he was somewhat dictatorial
in his manner of telling this perhaps
she imagined so. But when he urged
the point she rebelled against his as
sumption of authority.
It was their first quarrel and their
last, but it was very bitter one.
She spoke cruel, singing words, that
ranked and stung him the more that he
had learned to love her so dearly, as
only reserved, self-constrained men such
as he can love, and then only when they
hoard all the treasures of their nature to
lavish it in middle life on the woman
who is their fate.
After that he opposed her in nothing,
but it was as though great wall of ice
had risen between them.
He devoted himself to business and
she became the acknowledged leader of
the most exclusive circle of the city.
She was madly extravagant. She
made the house a marvel of aesthetic
beauty and entertained like princess.
Mrs. McKeon's toilets, jewels and dim
ners became the models of her set.
Men worshipped her beauty but for
all their fatteIies she had the same smile
of cold contempt and no one was bold
enough to venture beyond the most
commonplace.
And so the years passed and each one
drifted them further apart, until they
seldom met except at their own great
entertainments. Each year she became
IQOIC lllC SldtC VI ldollOb1 anu IN Va 'AAH
office. But through it all he loved her
with an undying love and his one thought
was to crafty her every whim.
And when the dark days came-when
ships that were freighted with costly
wares went down and were heard of no
more-when houses that seemed stable
as granite failed, and his wealth seemed
melting away like snow wreath, his
only thought was for her, and though
each day his hair grew whittier and his
form grew more stopped with bending
over the long columns of figures in
which the balance was always on the
wrong side, he whispered, "For her
sake," and struggled on and denied her
nothing.
And even on the day when he came
home, knowing that all his efforts had
availed nothing, and that he was poor
man, his only thought was for her, that
he would never more be able to give her